Star Spangled War Stories #164 (1972), story page 5 by Spiegle with Kubert edits

Pretty interesting to read through all those adjustments/changes Kubert deployed on Spiegle's original work! Nicely analyzed.

With DC, the war stories became more focused on characters that the readership could hang onto even as the genre itself was not as popular.  The first two panels are a nice contrast with the walls of the Pentagon and the wall of tropical trees each requiring their own type of inking expertise.  

Neat page that is made so much more fun with the detailed description you shared with us Peter. Congratulations on this mystery Kubert find and appreciate you choosing to post it here!

I used to own a few War pages that were drawn by Ron Randall and heavily reworked by Joe Kubert. Joe used to help his school's students get their first gigs at DC Comics and then help improve the work by going over it himself. I can say that those pages appeared to be completely drawn by Kubert. Conversely, I don't really see Kubert's style on this page. But unlike Randall and the other young students he would help out, Dan Spiegle was already a long established pro at this time, so I suppose that if he did make all the changes you state in the description, he did it by following Spiegle's line style rather than using his own, out of respect to Spiegle. A very nice looking page regardless of who did what!

Thanks, Rubén. I examined both sides of the page in front of a light. Am I misattributing some black brush strokes? Did Spiegle or an assistant do the paste-ups? Is the redrawn face too crude for Kubert? Alan Barnard notes in his CAF writeup that at this time Kubert was heavily editing art in war books. The seller also told me the pages have Kubert changes. My Spiegel war page drawn nine years latter one is free of paste-ups, whiteout, or other visible edits. Unsurprisingly the art is also better, except the hands. Spiegle as well as Glanzman drew crude hands. Kubert also did on figures in the background or distance to convey depth. That said, I should ask someone familiar with Kubert and Spiegle's art to examine the page for a second opinion. 

Hi Rubén. I also greatly appreciate your comments. I've edited the description to acknowledge ambiguity in the attribution (alliteration!) of the changes to Kubert. 

No problem, Peter. The only thing that I see as Kubert lines on this particular page are the 2 hands on the pasteover of panel three. I would say that any of the suggestions you've posited might be true. There's really no way we will ever know, though.

I deleted attribution of some black ink brushwork to Kubert after comparing the art with his pencils and inks in #160. Thanks for your comments that got me to reexamine the page! 

It does present well for a heavily edited page.

Thanks, Miki!